Freshman in a BSN Program: Advice for an aspiring CRNA?

[Kinga]

I'm only a freshman in a nursing program heading to a BSN, but I want to start early. My draw into nursing stems from my desire to help people, love for a fast paced and challenging environment and job security. My draw into CRNA comes from personal stories I've read, and just a strong sense of 'that's what I want'. I have a few more years of school, obviously, but I want to be on the track to get into a good grad school. The only way I know how to do this is to start early.

My nursing program requires these classes: (Along with our nursing courses, including 2 research classes teamed with clinical. && I'm taking a statistics course as well.)

A full year of Human Anatomy and Physiology.

Pathophysiology

Microbiology

Allied Health Chem

General Psychology

Fundamentals of Nutrition

My question is about the Allied Health Chemistry class I have to take. The class is a mix of organic chem, bio chem, and gen chem. However, a problem I'm running across is that a lot of grad schools require organic chem, bio chem and physics. Do you believe that my health chem class will fill the bio chem and organic chem requirements? As for the physics, I'm concerned. We only have a physics I and a physics II course in my school, and it's 2 semesters for 1 class. That's hard to fit into my schedule outside of my major.

I have a million more questions, but I'll keep researching.

[MB37]

Your health chem class will not fill an o/biochem requirement anywhere I'm applying that has one, but of course schools vary. Many schools don't require all of those classes, but many would like you to have taken some science beyond the basic NS prereqs. You can try to fit a course of two in before clinicals start, or you can do what many of us have done and wait until you've graduated with your BSN. You need 2 years (at most schools) of ICU experience anyways, so you'll have time to take any classes that are specifically required by programs you're actually applying to. You can focus on 1-2 classes at a time at that point, work may pay for them, and you'll be more sure that CRNA is truly for you once you've spent more time in the hospital setting - many people, myself included, have very different plans now than when they started NS. If you have the time now and the courses are available, and if you can take extra chem or physics without hurting your GPA, feel free to go for it - just don't feel like you HAVE to take them all right now. There's time later, and many programs don't require all three.

Good luck to you!